adminTHERE is time for food production and time for consumption. Hardly do we get conditions which allow crop production to take place throughout the year. Given our tropical climate, food is produced during the summer season that is characterised by falling rains.
Spiritual intervention was sometimes resorted to to ensure sufficient rains fell to sustain crop production. Among the Banyai and Bakalanga people of southern Africa rain shrines existed whose sole purpose was to ensure adequate rainfall. There was a hierarchy of these rain shrines, madaka, from the local level right up to the national level. Visits to the Njelele Shrine within the Matobo Hills was marked the culmination of the rain-making rituals whose catchment extended beyond Zimbabwe’s borders.
The limited period for crop production demands that communities work at full speed to ensure successful crop production.
There are clearly identifiable stages in the crop production cycle that need to be expedited to minimise losses and maximise harvests.
When rains have fallen, the land must be tilled. Communities did not start cultivating following the fall of the first rains. The day was regarded as sacred. When rains were accompanied by thunder and lightning that caused widespread destruction, on the following day communities did not go to the crop fields. Perceptions of rain were couched within a community’s worldviews and cosmologies.
Invention of iron smelting led to the production of iron agricultural implements. Use of these implements led to increased acreage under the hand hoe. More food became available and some humans were freed from engrossing and labour intensive agricultural chores to apply their minds to other political economic, cultural and artistic pursuits such as music, dance and technological pursuits. Both social and political engineering ensued. New cosmologies emerged. A new society emerged — more complex and developed.
While crop production was restricted to the rain bearing periods, technological interventions were sought to ensure production throughout the year. Irrigation was the answer to the challenge of rain-fed crop production. The shaduf was invented to get water from the Nile River in Egypt and get it to the canals that channelled it to irrigated plots. River valleys became locations for crop production: water was available and rich alluvial deposits from upstream provided the necessary soil fertility. As a result, populations became concentrated along rivers valleys such as the Nile, Euphrates and the Tigris.
For the Africans in central and southern Africa, work parties, amalima, were resorted to in order to negate the challenges associated delayed completion of critical stages in crop production. Families needed to till the land while it was still moist to ensure optimum seed germination. Where the size of family was small, there was no guarantee that available labour would complete cultivation in time before the soil lost moisture. Amalima were thus used at this stage to ensure moisture was adequate for planting. Food and beverages were supplied to the work parties.
Domesticated food plants were no longer suited to withstand competition from wild plants which were then regarded as weeds. Food crops needed timeous intervention to ensure weeds were eliminated. Once again, small families could not complete the task in time to ensure crop survival. Amalima were once again resorted to to ensure crops were not choked by weeds.
Ripened crops faced another threat from pests and vermin. It was necessary to get the crops harvested and taken to the next stage: that of threshing and storage. Amalima were made use of to undertake harvesting. Grain enclosures, izihonqo, were constructed from tree branches near homesteads. Wooden platforms, izingalane, were erected and various grains placed on them. Each pile on an ingalane was called isitha. Water melons and pumpkins were placed within spaces under platforms.
The space within isihonqo had the loose soil removed. Crunchy soil known as umkhumence was collected and spread within the space. Water was sprinkled on the soil which was then compacted using isitshayo. Soil from black anthill, ingqulwane, was then added and also compacted. A smooth round stone was used to give a smooth finish: the process is known as ukuchola.
The final stage was the application of cow dung, ubulongwe. Such a hardened surface within the enclosure is referred to as isiza.
It was important to create a low wall around the prepared area. This served to ensure grain did not stray too far away when threshing took place. In days gone by, when the Ndebele were still in South Africa, some shallow depression was made at the centre of the prepared space where grain collected after it was swept from where it had scattered.
Sometimes rain posed a threat to the grain within isihonqo. Once again, it was important to clear the grain by threshing gathered sorghum or millet. Work parties, amalima, always guaranteed the speedy dispensing of grain. Marula wine, umkumbi, beer, amahewu or some other food stuffs were provided to men and women who availed themselves to undertake threshing.
Long fresh and pliable wooden wands, imbhulo, were used to separate grain from chaff. Men and women used imbhulo to strike the piles of sorghum while doing so rhythmically. Singing was done to go along with threshing. The wooden wands struck the pile of sorghum simultaneously, while threshers constantly shifted positions in a particular direction, either clockwise or anticlockwise. Large ilala baskets were used to collect the grain and chaff for winnowing outside the enclosure.
The initial stage was to remove the chuff, amakhoba through ukuhlungula. Then winnowing was used to separate the clean grain from umule. Here knowledge of science was applied. Women made a fire near where they undertook winnowing. What effective winnowing relied upon were some air currents which blew away the lighter umule while the denser grain fell straight down. Heated air expands, becomes lighter or less dense and rises, thus creating air currents that flow to fill in the vacuum that rising air creates. Nature abhors a vacuum and winnowing ladies knew this pretty well.
At this stage grain was relatively safe. Threshing thus marked the final stage where amalima were used. Family members could easily cope with the rest of the chores within the crop production chain. Women would have prepared special architectural structures to store the grain throughout the winter months when there was little or no crop production.
In order to have the grains hard and resistant to pests such as weevils, harvesting was delayed till frost had been experienced.
That meant crops standing till after the month of June when frost was expected.
Online Reporter